Eva Palacios
: "Being a mom for her is like going on a camping trip. (...) She gets all excited and buys all the equipment, and then two days into it, she wishes that she was back in the hotel." ::—Jordi talking about Eva's motherhood Eva Palacios is a recurring character on Red Band Society. She is the mother of Jordi. She is portrayed by Catalina Sandino Moreno. Biography History Eva and Jordi have a tumultuous mother-son relationship. Though they had what would be considered a close relationship when Jordi was young, Eva was too immature and had too much of a carefree lifestyle for both of them. She would involve Jordi in her gambling habits—she would have him help her cheat in games by sneaking in cards through him, and even had him spent his 5th birthday in a casino and his 6th in a cocktail lounge in Reno. Along with this, she would constantly forget to leave food for him, especially since she was on a "strict liquid diet". Eventually, Eva gave up and sent the young Jordi to her parents in Guanajuato, Mexico and even had him take the trip alone. Jordi would then grow up without Eva as a constant figure in his life, causing him to develop an underlying animosity for her due to her being a deadbeat of a mother. Season One In a bar one evening, Eva exchanges glances with a stranger whom she later sleeps with. ("Sole Searching") The next morning, after having been told by Jordi's grandmother that "something's wrong with his leg," she finally went to the Ocean Park Hospital. There, she runs into the stranger she slept with last night, who turns out to be Adam McAndrew, coincidentally a doctor at the hospital and, more specifically, Jordi's doctor. It is then that she finds out that Jordi had led everyone to believe that she had passed away, because, according to Jordi, she was at least dead to him. Eva tried to defend herself, saying that her mother must have poisoned Jordi's impression of her. It would only be later that she would even realize that Jordi had cancer, not a broken leg as she thought. When she spoke to Jordi and told him that she wanted to be there for him, he refused, knowing that she just had "an angle" like she always did. Persistent as she was, she challenged Jordi to a game of poker, which he agreed to. While Jordi would have beat her with his hand (a full house), he folded when he realized, after a conversation with Dr. McAndrew and reminiscing some of their better moments together, that he might appreciate having his mother around, after all. ("Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire") Initially, Eva actually tried and put in some effort to be a good mother for Jordi. She stayed around the hospital trying to help him as much as she could. When Nurse Jackson pointed out that she should learn about Jordi's condition with medical books, she even read some of it and also attended the parents' support group that Jackson recommended. Throughout her stay, she also flirted with Dr. McAndrew upon apparently receiving mixed signals from him. Upon realizing this, he immediately shot it down. He also chastised her about letting him go to the movies, telling her that he was sick and in no condition to get out of the hospital. This is later proven correct when Jordi returns in bad shape after collapsing at the theater. Realizing that she could not handle the pressure, Eva proved that she was exactly what Jordi made her out to be when she left the hospital, fleeing while Jordi napped. She claimed to only be stepping out to get ginger ale for Jordi when, in fact, she was leaving. Dr. McAndrews went after her and tried to talk her out of it—an encounter Jordi witnessed from his room's window, much to his disappointment. Nonetheless, Eva left and officially relinquished her guardianship of Jordi, allowing Jordi to finally become an emancipated minor just as he always wanted before she came around. ("There's No Place Like Homecoming") Category:Characters Category:Recurring Character